


You're a Horrible Bowl of Soup, Cara Dune

by Lady_Vibeke



Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [7]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Caretaking, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Idiots in Love, Sick Character, Sick Din Djarin, Sickfic, Sleepy Cuddles, Soft Cara Dune, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23493103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke
Summary: The baby cuddled up to Din's side, ears drooping in the fakest and most adorable display of guilt Din had ever seen. Din curled an arm around him, letting him rest his head in the crook between his hip and his legs. The kid sighed contentedly.Cara fetched the tray with the soup, so hot that tendrils of steam still rose from the bowl. There were a couple of pieces of bread soaking in it: Cara broke them down with a spoon and stirred. A small, nostalgic smile started surfacing on her lips."My mother used to say that a bowl of soup is the real food for the soul," she said wistfully. A small smile tugged at her lips. "Because it's warm and comforting, and it always makes you feel better."Din knew something that had that effect on him. It wasn't soup, though.Cara cocked her head as if she was observing him.“I don't suppose you can eat this on you own, huh?”
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: Cara Dune & Din Djarin: Tales of Two Space Idiots in Love [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709416
Comments: 27
Kudos: 264





	You're a Horrible Bowl of Soup, Cara Dune

**Author's Note:**

> I KNOW I'm supposed to be updating Two Bisexuals Walk Into A Coffee Shop, and I swear it's being taken care of, but this little thing kept nagging me and I had to get it all out or it wouldn't let me focus.
> 
> It's short and fluffy and so full of cheese, but, hey, it's a sickfic, it requires cheesy feels.

"I _told you_ you shouldn't underestimate that cold! Serves you right for never listening to me."

Din discarded the last piece of his armour and finally, blissfully collapsed into his bunk with a heavy groans.

Every single muscle, bone and joint in his body was awfully sore: even the mere act of lying down cost him an unbearable effort.

Cara towered above him with the child in her arms, an expression of mild concern fighting with smugness to take over her face. She'd been telling him to take better care of himself for a while after a rough few days on Scipio and its freezing temperatures; Din knew she took no pleasure in seeing him sick, but he could tell how much she'd been craving to slap that _'I told you'_ across his sorry face.

Deserved, he had to concede that.

In a remarkable display of mercy, Cara helped him roll under the covers and one-handedly tucked him in. The warmth of the blankets didn't bring any relief, though: the ice was everywhere inside him, running through his veins and making him shudder from head to toe. His lungs felt like they were on fire and every breath was like a stab.

"You need to take that bucket off, man,” said Cara. “You're going to suffocate in there."

"I will, I promise,” he heaved with a shiver. He was sweating so much under that thing and couldn't wait to take it off.

Cara perfectly got the message, but didn't seem to agree with Din's implication that he would have to be left to himself.

"Nice try,” she smirked. She adjusted the kid on her hip and gave Din's whole shivering body an eloquent once over. “I'm not leaving you alone in here while you're in this pathetic condition-”

“Thank you,” he cut in, hoping she would get his irony. If she did, she simply chose to ignore it.

"The kid and I will be playing a game, won't we, buddy?” Grinning brightly, she fished a couple of cloths from the compartment under her own bunk. “We're going to wear these awesome bands on our eyes so Daddy can get rid of his helmet, okay? It's going to be so much fun!"

Din tried to laugh but the attempt miserably failed and immediately turned into a coughing fit, which made Cara stare pointedly at him as if to say _'See?'._

"This is never going to work," he protested, though a part of him genuinely wanted her and the child close, if only to distract him from the cold and the pain.

Cara granted him a condescending smirk.

"You're allowed to laugh at me when I stumble into things. We're going downstairs to make you some soup,” she added, looking down at the kid with a worrisome enthusiasm. “You'll see how pretty we look when we get back."

Din watched her leave while murmuring indiscernibly to the baby in a little voice that made Din smile like an idiot. Some of the cold in his bones seemed to melt away.

Din didn't realise he dozed off until he heard Cara's steps approach.

“We're blindfolded,” she warned as she tentatively walked in with a tray in her hands. What it carried, Din couldn't tell. The kid was in his pram floating behind her with a stripe of blue fabric wrapped around his head and apparently very thrilled by it. Cara wasn't equally thrilled by her own black blindfold: she moved slowly, reaching out with one hand to check where she was going.

“You still got your bucket on, don't you?” she deadpanned, stopping in the middle of the room to listen.

“I fell asleep,” he mumbled. His mind was foggy, thoughts were blurry. The heat he felt pooling behind his eyes was a maddening wall between his brain and his mouth, as if words lost their meaning by the time they reached his lips.

He attempted to wiggle out of the tangle of covers he had got himself into, but he felt so weak that he could barely move an arm.

Cara left the tray on her own bunk, which she had little trouble reaching. Her confidence in this room was remarkable: it was almost like she didn't have the blindfold at all, here.

“Need help?” she offered, crossing the brief distance between the two bunks to sit down by Din's side.

Din tried to raise a hand but failed miserably.

“I can't-”

“I know you can't, smartass. That's why I asked.”

Cara's irritated tone was so soft he couldn't even pretend to be offended. She helped him lift his back enough for her to slip his helmet off, then eased him back to the mattress.

The sudden direct exposure of his burning face to the fresh air in the room was such a relief Din let out a feeble moan. Breathing was still difficult, but at least he wasn't feeling like he had a wet pillow pressed over his mouth and nose, now.

He sucked in a sharp breath when he felt a cool touch of the side of his face. Cara's gentle fingers felt his cheek, her thumb accidentally brushing over his parted lips, then her hand moved to his forehead – palm first, then her knuckles. It reminded Din of when his mother used to look after him when he was sick as a child. He was glad Cara couldn't see him smile.

“You're warm,” he said, savouring the heat she emanates all over his torso.

“I took care of my cold,” she retorted, retracting her hand. “Unlike someone else.”

Din wanted to beg her to leave her hand where it was, to lie down beside him and let him have some of the beautiful heat she seemed to be burning with, but, even in his hazy state, he realised how indecent that would sound.

“Can you mock me when I'm not feeling like I'm about to freeze over?” he sighed as yet another shudder shook his limbs.

Cara grinned. “Sure, no problem. Can you sit up?” she inquired, and Din tried, but he really _couldn't._

“Wait,” she said, splaying a hand on his chest to keep him from trying again. “I got this.”

She stretched out toward her bunk, then helped Din sit up. It was agony, at first: the dull ache in his bones flared and his lungs felt like they were on fire. But then he rest back into an unexpected softness, and everything was instantly gone.

It took him a few seconds to figure out that the softness he was lying back on was Cara's pillow. This awareness caused a sharp tug to something buried deep in his chest, and he wasn't sure if it was the fever making his breath hitch or the scent the pillow carrid to his nostrils – Cara's scent – so sweet and real it gave him an instant sense of peace. He could barely smell it, but it was there, clearer than any other smell in the room, more comforting than the blankets he was buried beneath, or the idea of the hot soup warming him up from the inside.

The child's pram was floating low next to Din's head; the child was peering out of it, his big ears turning curiously at every sound.

“Hey, kid,” Din greeted hoarsely. He received an enthusiastic gurgle in return, and the child's little hands reached out toward him in a vain attempt to reach him. Din would have liked to give him a reassuring caress but he lacked the physical strength to do so. This was when the kid decided to _throw_ himself over the edge of him pram.

Din gasped. His brain produced the thought of catching him into his arms but his body just couldn't execute the order. Someone else's body did, however: as if tuning in to Din's frequency, Cara caught the baby by the collar of his robe and, laughing, slowly deposited him between the narrow space between Din and the wall. All of this with her blindfold still in place.

Their mental sync had stopped surprising Din a long time ago. He still did't know how it happened, but if this had once been bemusing to him, now he was getting more and more smug about it. It came in handy when they had to face particularly skilled adversaries: they were good as individual fighters, but no one ever really expected to face an excellent fighter divided in two separate bodies moving like one.

“We're going to have to put a harness on him at some point,” Cara commented, indulgently stroking the baby's head. “This little shit is a danger to himself.”

The baby cuddled up to Din's side, ears drooping in the fakest and most adorable display of guilt Din had ever seen. Din curled an arm around him, letting him rest his head in the crook between his hip and his legs. The kid sighed contentedly.

Cara fetched the tray with the soup, so hot that tendrils of steam still rose from the bowl. There were a couple of pieces of bread soaking in it: Cara broke them down with a spoon and stirred. A small, nostalgic smile started surfacing on her lips.

"My mother used to say that a bowl of soup is the real food for the soul," she said wistfully. A small smile tugged at her lips. "Because it's warm and comforting, and it always makes you feel better."

Din knew something that had that effect on him. It wasn't soup, though.

Cara cocked her head as if she was observing him.

“I don't suppose you can eat this on you own, huh?”

Din sank back in his pillow- in _her_ pillow with a faint groan.

Cara didn't need any more than that.

“This is gonna be awkward,” she warned with a giggle as she placed her left hand on the side of Din's face for guidance. She dipped the spoon into the bowl with her right hand and slowly lifted it to his mouth. Surprisingly, they managed to empty the bowl with very little damage. Din actually felt better after that, but wasn't sure it was entirely, or even partially, because of the soup.

Cara had been sitting by him the whole time, her leg against his, her hand cupping his cheek. Was she aware of the little smile she was wearing, barely stifled by her teeth digging into it?

A flare of warmth spread inside Din, the contrast with the ice in his bones making goosebumps rise all over his skin.

“The kid has fallen asleep, hasn't he?” Cara asked while putting the tray with the bowl to the ground.

Din looked down and found the child snoring happily.

“Yes.”

“Give him here.”

Din carefully picked up the baby and placed him to Cara's waiting arms. The child sighed blissfully as he cuddled up against her bosom, eliciting an amused laugh from her.

She delicately put him in his pram and tucked him in with a soft kiss on his wrinkled forehead.

The warmth inside Din flared again. There was a hunger pooling at the pit of his stomach that he couldn't quite place.

“You should rest, now,” said Cara, starting to stand up, but Din seized her wrist with whatever energy left in him. He didn't know what he wanted to do – Stop her? Ask her to stay? Why would she stay? – but he didn't need to say anything.

“You're still trembling like a baby Porg in the snow,” said Cara, voice laced with concern. Her hand found its way to his face again and Din didn't even care how bad he was feeling, because all he wanted was to keep that beautiful warmth and never let go.

“It's okay,” he croaked, panting slightly. “I'll be alright.”

The intensity of his shivers, however, was a big, flashy contradiction to his words.

“We gotta keep you warm,” Cara grumbled, stripping the two blankets from her own bunk to lay them upon Din. “Better?”

No, but he didn't want her to worry too much.

“Better.”

“Liar,” she scoffed. “Move.”

“What?”

“Move aside, genius. You always say I'm a human radiator. Time to put me to good use.”

Too stunned to protest or even react, Din shifted toward the wall to make room for her by his side. Cara kicked off her boots and crawled under the sheets with him, utterly unbothered by how tight they were going to be in there.

“Are you sure-”

“Lie down and get some sleep, man,” she cut him off. “Come on.”

He couldn't but obey as she wrapped an arm around his waist and forced him to scoot down until he was almost completely on his back. He was going to need both pillows to be able to breathe, so she just rest her head next to his and relaxed. Din wondered if she had forgotten to remove her arm or if she was intentionally still hugging him. Either way, he was not stupid enough to complain about it.

He couldn't fall asleep for a long while, not because of the fever, but because his whole body was all too aware of Cara pressed so close to him, of her breath on his neck, of the weight of her arm across his stomach. The only thought fluttering lazily in his mind as he drifted into sleep was that perhaps neglecting colds wasn't such a bad idea, from time to time, if this was where it got him.

He didn't know – or didn't _want_ to know – how he truly felt about this woman, but one thing he knew for sure: having her curled up beside him was a gift he would treasure forever. He was okay with not getting anything more than this, ever. If Cara didn't feel about him the way he did about her, this would be his favourite memory: a simple night of closeness, her stubborn determination to look after him, her trust to lie with him so intimately without fearing any boundary overstep.

This was why Din almost felt ashamed when he woke up in the dead of the night with an arm and a leg flung over Cara, his chest pressed to her back and his face buried in her hair.

His heart stopped.

He hadn't meant to do this. He was still dizzy and weak from the fever, but lucid enough to know this was exactly what Cara probably trusted him _not_ to do. And though it wasn't completely his fault, since he had no control over what he did in his sleep, he couldn't help feeling guilty for this.

He tried to pull away discreetly to avoid waking her up, but as soon as he started drawing his arm back Cara's hand grabbed it and firmly placed it back where it had been.

Din's pulse increased.

Was she awake or was it an involuntary reaction?

"Cara?" he dared, half expecting her not to reply, because her breath was slow and even.

Against all odds, Cara shifted sightly, pushing back against him, and let out a muffled: "Yeah?"

He couldn't swear she was really awake, but, then again, same went for her.

Din snuggled his face deeper into her hair until his nose skimmed against the skin of her neck. Cara let out a soft moan that made his heart race and his lips spread into a hopeful smile.

"You're my bowl of soup,” he whispered, voice dimmed by sleep and exhaustion.

He felt Cara's chest shake lightly under his arm.

"Go back to sleep, you idiot."

"Am I your bowl of soup?"

Cara's chest shook again, this time more vigorously. She turned in his embrace to face him. She didn't pull back when their noses touched; Din tried his best not to think too much about how the excess of closeness didn't seem to scare her away. It didn't mean anything.

Din felt her fingers upon his face, cool and delicate. They followed his features fondly, moving the damp strands of hair of out the way, unbothered by the sweat. Her thumb traced over his lips again, and this time it just couldn't be an accident.

"No, you're not my bowl of soup.”

Din's heart sank, but then Cara leant forward to brush a soft kiss on the tip of his nose and added:

“You're the whole damn pot."

And at this point it was pretty obvious neither of them was absently mumbling in their sleep, so Din just nudged his nose back over hers, tortured by the unfair proximity of her lips and at the same time not wanting to dare too much.

“Yeah?” he muttered hopefully.

Cara nestled her head under his chin, grinning against his bare neck.

“Did you just pretend to be delirious to trick me into this cheesy banthashit?”

“I would never,” said Din, feigning indignation. He wrapped his arm tighter around her while Cara comfortably sneaked a knee between his legs as if this was something they did every day.

“Kriff you,” she whined, and he could feel her smile grow wider. “I'm too tired for this, I'll hate you in the morning.”

Somehow, this threat sounded suspiciously like a promise.

Din grinned like a smug idiot and sank back into the pillow – Cara's pillow – suddenly realising, quite stupidly, that the reason her scent got stronger was because he was literally surrounded by her, now: every single inch of him felt her, needed her. _Loved her._

“You're a horrible bowl of soup, Cara Dune.”

**Author's Note:**

> Too soft? Too cheesy? I don't really care, I love making these two idiots so weak for each other.
> 
> Feed the hungry author some comments, maybe? Keep the muse nourished! ❤


End file.
